


the load

by Aza (sazandorable)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, MAG133, mostly hurt and refusal of comfort., rough sex fantasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 10:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18636286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sazandorable/pseuds/Aza
Summary: (spoilers for MAG132-133)It's not that Daisy came back wrong, it's that she came backrightand that's the problem.Basira doesn't have time for this.





	the load

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for MAG132-133, set around that time. This was originally written and posted on tumblr shortly after the airing of those episodes; beta'd and reworked to repost it here with the additional context from MAG136 but it's still mostly my gut reaction to MAG133.
> 
> CW: uuhh victim-blaming?, mentions and disregard of PTSD and general mental health issues, angst, and slightly sexey bits, with... vague agency/consent issues for spooky reasons. Although originally written for prompts asking for soft Dasira talking things out and cuddling and it does eventually go there and have a vaguely happy/hopeful ending, it's. really not that in spirit, definitely not a feel-good soft fic.
> 
> I had feelings.

It’s one in the morning or so, probably, and for _once_ Jon is not in, having conked out in the middle of the afternoon like some sort of monster cat, so Basira seized the opportunity to take over his office again. The place is still a mess, despite his initial efforts to clean it back up; cheers to him, but Basira gave up on that the first week after the Flesh attack. It’s not like finding relevant statements or case file notes was any easier before anyway. 

Still, Jon’s office is now one of the least uncomfortable places to sit down for hours at a time and actually get some work done, now that the floor of the assistants’ desk space has a big hole in the middle of it, so that’s some more reason to organise her time around Jon’s absences. Presently she is rummaging through the remnants of his shelves looking for — honestly, she doesn’t quite remember, but one of Elias’s latest cryptic in-jokes reminded her of something she read in the case... ugh, what was it. The blanket? Melanie said something about a blanket monster, way back last year, before the Unknowing and everything?

She pulls out a dusty stack of files helpfully labelled ‘ _nyctophobia??? idk_ ’, in a handwriting she doesn’t recognise, and turns back around, needs a minute to clear out space on the desk to put it down. As she does, she registers, distantly: the lighting and shadows in the room have changed. The door is open and there’s another light source coming from it, and something blocking out. Right on the edges of her vision, a hulking shape hovers hesitantly.

Despite the context, it’s not scary — it’s just wrong. 

“What is it, Daisy?” she sighs, and stops herself biting her tongue at the dryness of her tone; pushes down the flash of anger when Daisy visibly recoils.

“Nothin’,” Daisy mumbles, faltering. She looks and sounds like a wounded animal, and not the kind that only gets more dangerous, either. Not some kind of lioness roaring a furious battle-cry, just a whimpering puppy. Basira’s hands tighten around the stack.

She hates it, hates herself for hating it, hates Daisy for clearly picking up on it and letting Basira hurt her.

It’s just another issue to address, another problem to fix, another weight on the load — and Basira doesn’t have _time_ for this, doesn’t have room to take on this burden too and it would be so much easier if Daisy was still gone, dead, a hole in Basira’s heart but at least a non-issue.

Instead, Basira gets this: Daisy here here here, desperately trying to catch her eyes and scared to at the same time because Basira can’t hide her disappointment.

Daisy is scared, Daisy is vulnerable, Daisy is a fragile brittle little thing that Basira could break again with the wrong inflection of voice, and it isn’t just the PTSD, she’s said, it’s the real her, the Daisy without the Hunt. Daisy, the real Daisy, is only prickly from shyness, is gentle; she curls up on herself to take up less space, stands against the walls and tries to meld into them, has her panic attacks quietly in the corner so as not to inconvenience anyone. She still laughs the same laugh, Basira recognises it, the same wry and shitty humour but it’s low and soft now. The dark barking undertone that used to scratch matches against Basira’s skin, that’s gone, that was the Hunt and not Daisy. She still looks at Basira but it’s pleading, idolising, weeping — the heat and the hunger and the shivers Basira would get, the thrill of being singled out and pursued, the feeling she got like Daisy would eat her one day, one way or another, metaphorically or not — that was the Hunt and Basira is wrong to have liked it, wrong to miss it, wrong to want it back. The real Daisy has never wanted to pin Basira against a wall and dig her nails and teeth in her, the real Daisy doesn’t want to leave her wrecked and bleeding and pulsing with pain and life, the real Daisy doesn’t want to hurt her, and all the nasty fantasies Basira has entertained in the years they’ve known each other have been about some alien entity giving Daisy unnatural urges that now terrify her. In short, _bad_.

Something else that’s bad too, isn’t it: resenting your partner for having survived and needing help rather than being help. It’s not like it’s Daisy’s fault. (Except it is, it’s Daisy’s fault Basira is stuck here, it’s Daisy’s fault Basira signed this contract, it’s Daisy’s fault Basira has been fighting to survive and keep this evil place afloat for the last eight months while Daisy was stuck in a coffin —)

(It’s Daisy’s fault Basira learned to rely on her so much for so long, and can’t anymore, now.)

Basira wants to think she isn’t a bad person. She’s just. Tired. Doesn’t want to be mean. But being good and noble only gets you killed faster, or more miserable. And/or.

Then again, so does being an asshole and going it alone; she’s not stupid.

She’s just tired, so tired.

She rubs her eyes, tells herself the moisture is only from exhaustion. Goes back to opening the first file, pretends that the words are making any sense, that her eyes aren’t prickling.

“Basira…”

She drags her gaze back up; it feels almost physically heavy. Daisy is still standing at the threshold of the office, clearly wanting to but not daring to come in; she has her arms around herself in a position that Basira knows well, but all the defiance and provocation is gone and instead it’s self-consciousness, anguish, a cry for comfort. She’s looking at her feet, but when she detects the movement of Basira’s head, she glances back up too.

Daisy still looks at Basira. It’s shy, now, almost tearful, but she still _watches_ and she still _wants_ Basira, that much is obvious, for what it’s worth.

“What?” Basira asks in a groan, with the half-hearted hope that Daisy won’t answer. She knows what this is about — if not another panic attack, maybe flashbacks, or nightmares if she did manage to get any sleep earlier. Perhaps even the spooky Jon dreams Basira used to have, which, yeah, they’ll need to do something about if Daisy’s having them still or again, and Basira isn’t going to have any more time for that later than she has time to spend comforting Daisy right now.

Daisy shifts, unsure. She’s never. Looked unsure. For years Basira had been able to live her life without a worry because Daisy was always sure.

Finally, Daisy says: “You should sleep.”

She is not saying what she wants to, no monster powers required to know that.

“So should you,” Basira baits, and Daisy winces, clutches her own arms tighter, scratches herself through her clothes apparently thoughtlessly; Basira wonders, idly, if it hurts, if they’re sharp claws, if they’re retractable like a cat’s or it’s an even more supernatural system than that.

“I can’t…” Daisy starts, stops again. Chews her lower lip. She’s never been especially wordy, but now full sentences from her are very near exceptional. “I, er. Not alone.”

The thought is innocuous, inane, but it hits Basira like a freight train: _Goddamnit, she’s cute_. Basira picks it up between two fingers and sees it through to the end, chews it up, swallows it like a bitter pill, digests it and analyses it for conclusions. Daisy has never been _cute_. This is wrong, except apparently it’s what’s right, and there’s nothing Basira can do about it.

Basira is royally pissed about it, all of it, but she gives up.

“Yeah, let’s go to bed,” she sighs, slamming the file back down. She stands up from the desk, and Daisy all but jumps up like a dog being taken out for a walk; in less than a second she’s waded between the piles of statements and hopped over a tape recorder or two and is all up in Basira’s space, tucked under her arm, plastered to Basira’s hip, her gaunt face illuminated, smiling with her gnawed lips and broken teeth and crooked mouth, and it’s such fucking _whiplash_. If you’d asked her eight months ago, Basira would have said that of course she’d seen Daisy happy before, but she’s never seen _this_.

And it’s a miracle, is the thing. She needs to shut down her angry bitter cop brain more, because when that stops, she can remember: Daisy being here is a miracle.

Daisy is here, Daisy is _alive_ , she’s safe (ish), she’s _happy_ — she’s _here_.

She’s here. She’s grinning shyly and shoving her nose against Basira’s shoulder, breathing her in. She’s warm and clingy, and she stinks a bit, and it takes her ages to climb down the ladder to the tunnels step by excruciating step where she used to just jump down, and her body is heavy and her skinny legs tangle uncomfortably with Basira’s, and there is absolutely not enough room for the two of them on this cot, but why the hell would they sleep alone? Her hands burrow under Basira’s night clothes and, yep, no claws but her nails scratch her skin in passing, and she makes an anxious apologetic noise in the back of the throat and presses her palm on the pained spot. She’s not a bloodhound anymore but she is a big goddamn puppy — no, she isn’t, she’s a person, she’s still Basira’s partner, she’s _Daisy_ she’s still _Daisy_ — and she won’t eat Basira up but she evidently cannot get enough of her still. She is utterly, pathetically useless, can’t even sleep alone, can’t do much of anything without Basira, but she’s _here_.

Basira feels the knot in her throat, the tears pooling under her eyelids, because she doesn’t hate _this_ : she hates that she can’t afford — she hates that she forgets, most of the time, that she’s so, so, so happy about this.

She still needs to go, tomorrow; she needs to go to the LMA first thing in the morning, get that sorted out before her appointment with that spook Elias hinted she’d want to interview, and then in the afternoon call up the Usher foundation contact, pray she doesn’t have to get on a plane again this week. She still needs to do her work, bloody Elias’s work, alone. She still can’t afford to lug Daisy around and coddle her, there are still things that are, objectively, more important than Daisy’s life and presence and hot hands and cold feet against Basira’s skin.

Tomorrow.

“Stop goddamn _thinking_ ,” Daisy whispers, in that thick accent of hers she gets when she’s angry or tired. It’s less of a growl and more of a drawl, now, sleepy and warm instead of hot and tense; it used to make Basira want to ride her hand, now she just wants to nuzzle her face into Daisy’s hair. And that’s fine. She does that, and Daisy muffles a little gasp into the dark, soft, precious. They _still_ don’t know for sure but Basira hopes, with delirious fierceness, that they’re right and Elias can’t see in the tunnels, cannot and did not see nor hear this, that this little sound is safe and only Basira’s. 

Daisy’s request is not fair; Basira _cannot afford_ to stop all the thinking and planning and plotting, it’s what’s keeping them all alive (so far, allegedly, hopefully). But just for now. Just to rest up, for tomorrow.

“Okay,” she sighs back, and sinks into Daisy’s mouth kissing the side of her neck, and closes her eyes.


End file.
